Toyota's humanoid robot achieves Guinness record in basketball long throw
The humanoid CUE6 robot from Toyota achieved a long throw record in basketball. The robot had learned the throwing technique itself.
The CUE6 robot breaking its basketball long throw record.
(Image: Guinness World Records (Screenshot))
Toyota has set a Guinness record in basketball with its humanoid CUE6 robot. The robot managed to accurately hit and score a basketball hoop from a distance of 80.6 feet (about 24.56 m). The CUE6 relied exclusively on its internal systems.
Own throwing technique through AI
However, the first attempt to hit the basketball hoop from a great distance did not work. CUE6 only hit the ring and the ball bounced off. The robot then readjusted automatically. To do this, it uses artificial intelligence (AI) and pattern recognition systems. Both ensure that the robot can estimate the distance to the basket and then adjust its throwing force and technique independently. As the head of the CUE project, Tomohiro Nomi, said, the CUE6 robot has developed its own throwing style over time. It learned the most effective throwing method from many throws. The original programming only intended the throws at the basketball hoop to be human-like.
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On its second attempt, the robot hit the basket from a distance of more than 24.5 m and was able to break the Guinness record. This is already the second record that a CUE robot has achieved in basketball. In 2019, CUE3 set the record for the most consecutive basketball free throws made by a humanoid robot. The CUE robot scored 2020 times in a row. The record would have been even higher had the engineers not aborted the experiment at the time. It would probably still be successfully shooting free throws today.
Although a long throw distance of 24.5 m is impressive, the CUE6 robot has not yet come close to human performance. The longest successful basketball throw in 2022 was made by Joshua Walker from the USA. The basketball player sank the ball from a distance of 34.6 meters, which he threw from outside the court.
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Toyota engineers are constantly developing the humanoid CUE robot further. They also want to teach it to dribble and other basketball skills. The dream is to build a robot that can dunk like basketball legend Michael Jordan, says Nomi.
(olb)
